Picture by Michael Strickland
Bass-baritone Davóne Tines and Ruckus, which San Francisco Classical Voice described as “the world’s solely period-instrument rock band,” introduced their program, referred to as “What’s Your Hand in This?”, to San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre on February 7.
“What Is Your Hand In This?” is a gently confrontational program, described as conceived by Douglas Adam August Balliett, Tines, and Clay Zeller-Townson. Balliett is Ruckus’s bass participant – that’s electrical bass – and Zeller-Townson is the group’s double reed participant and (at the least for this program) percussionist. It’s not a standard recital program, however one thing looser, much less formal, and extra participatory.
For these concert events, Ruckus, which has versatile membership, additionally included violinist Keir GoGwilt, violists Shelby Yamin, and Manami Mizumoto, Baroque guitarist Paul Holmes Morton, and Elliot Figg on keyboards. The string gamers used Baroque bows; see “period-instrument rock band.”
This system, marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the custom of dissent in American music, included about 20 works from the 18th to twenty first centuries by well-known composers and composers who ought to be well-known. The vocal and instrumental alternatives drew on a variety of traditions: classical, blues, and hymns from the Black church by Handel and Balliet.
This system lasted an hour and 1 / 4 and flowed seamlessly from one quantity to the following. Typically you couldn’t even inform the place they started and ended, significantly the alternatives from Balliet’s Compassion Preludes, written final yr and commissioned for this program. I hope to listen to them on their very own someday, significantly due to Ruckus’s lovely taking part in.
After all Tines was the star of the present – he was up entrance singing a lot of the time – however he he didn’t domineer, sharing the stage generously with Ruckus, unfold in a semi-circle on stage, and choristers. At every tour cease, a unique refrain participated; in San Francisco, it was the Ruth Asawa College of the Arts Live performance Choir, directed by Michael Desnoyers.
They had been splendidly responsive and alert, enthusiastic. They had been focussed and musical all through, even within the improvisatory thickets of Julius Eastman’s “Buddha,” absolutely probably the most difficult music on this system. The music of Eastman, a musical radical, a homosexual Black man like Davóne Tines, resonated with the entire program.
Tines is a welcoming presence, talking to and welcoming the viewers, inviting us to contemplate the formation of the USA, and what this system refers to as “the founding hypocrisy of the American Revolution,” through which the founders fought for freedom whereas enslaving individuals who had no freedom.
Founding father John Dickinson, a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, was represented on this system by his track “The Liberty Track,” sung to the tune “Coronary heart of Oak,” and massively common on the time. Dickinson himself had enslaved individuals engaged on his farm.
Counterbalancing Dickinson’s private hypocrisy got here “What Imply Ye?”, by the abolitionist George W. Clark, who compiled a group of anti-slavery songs, two songs from round 1801 by Sawney Freeman, who may need been the nation’s first Black composer, and Joshua McCarter Simpson’s “To the White Folks of American,” from 1854.
The title of this system comes from lyrics Tines wrote to a tune he based mostly on Black American folks custom, referred to as “What’s My Hand in This?,” which he first sang at a celebration of rich individuals. The track is a problem to the listener, whether or not rich or not, to attempt to proper any wrongs they’ve dedicated – a accountability for us all.
Tines not solely challenged the viewers to contemplate this, however made us part of the work by inviting us to sing together with the chorus, which we did. Elsewhere on this system, he had the viewers clapping. The singing and the clapping drew us into the communion of musical efficiency.
One would possibly marvel – I actually did – about why Tines and every of the devices had been amplified. Herbst is a small theater, seating 928, with good acoustics: a lot smaller ensembles don’t have any issue making themselves heard. The amplification didn’t make it simpler to know the phrases.
Tines is a outstanding performer – magnet, charismatic, an enveloping presence – with a outstanding voice, a warmly resonant bass-baritone of nice vary, extending to an attractive falsetto that he placed on show on occasion through the efficiency. And Ruckus was a fabulous companion in “What Is Your Hand In This?” Maybe there might be a recording or video launch of this shifting, considerate program, so applicable when our political life is fraught with hazard and our very democracy, reminiscent of it’s, is threatened.
Lisa Hirsch
Lisa Hirsch studied music at Brandeis College and Stony Brook. She studied flute severely for various years and has sung all kinds of music in lots of choruses. She has written about opera and classical music for San Francisco Classical Voice, Opera Information (RIP), Opera, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She blogs about these topics at Iron Tongue of Midnight, which additionally consists of a lot of her images.
Although she has attended San Francisco Opera and different firms because the early Eighties, her opera obsession actually began within the early 90s, when she began listening to historic singers.
